When Cristóbal Colón began working in Spain’s psychiatric hospitals, he was horrified by the way the patients were treated. For most of history, people suffering from intellectual handicaps and mental disorders have been misunderstood, mistreated, and ostracized from society. Cristóbal decided to dedicate his life to improving conditions for those on the fringes. Empowering individuals with disabilities in the workplace became Colón’s quest. With a specialty in labor therapy, he knew the rehabilitating value and dignity that honest work can provide. Cristóbal envisioned a humane working community where people across a full range of abilities could create a place where people were truly seen and valued. La Fageda was created to accomplish this mission
What originally started as landscape and gardening services would become a unique socio-economic project offering healing and employment to more than 400 people, many of whom have mental handicaps, mental illness, or are otherwise from vulnerable backgrounds. La Fageda produces yogurt, ice cream, and jam products that are sold in the La Garrotxa region of Catalonia, Spain.
Other projects include dairy farm maintenance, gardening work, and social services like occupational therapy and job training, all of which take place as La Fageda simultaneously welcomes 50,000 visitors a year to its unique, secluded campus. To operate such a diverse range of activities would be difficult under any circumstance. To do so while empowering individuals who are assumed to be unemployable by much of society—and while competing in a market dominated by large multinational corporations—is nearly unimaginable.
Cristóbal wanted La Fageda to be a lasting and self-sustaining enterprise, one that could disperse the benefits of social entrepreneurship to a broader audience while adapting to the challenges that continually arise to threaten any company: rising costs, employee retention and engagement, steep marketplace competition, internal conflict, and so on. After reading Leadership and Self Deception, Cristóbal sought out an Arbinger public workshop in hopes of understanding how to foster an outward mindset in social enterprises. While seeing the humanity in others was already at the core of La Fageda, Cristóbal believed Arbinger’s capacity to operationalize an outward mindset would be crucial to ensuring La Fageda could continue to thrive both as a business and as a social mission.
La Fageda wanted an outward mindset to permeate its culture and inform its business practices. They therefore elected to have their organization’s leadership become trained to deliver Arbinger’s training programs internally, ensuring that every manager participates in ongoing training experience led by Cristóbal with ongoing support from Arbinger coaches and consultants to help infuse outward ways of working into the very fabric of the company’s culture. Looking at other social entrepreneurship examples, the training regimen included establishing a deep awareness of the ubiquitous influence of mindset, how perception becomes distorted, how to recognize and shift unproductive patterns of conflict, and how leaders can best approach helping others to change.
Where many businesses are primarily concerned with profit, La Fageda faces the complex tension of enhancing commercial endeavors without sacrificing their people-centric social entrepreneurship mission.
The causes are interrelated, as financial viability provides employment opportunities, community structure, and therapeutic offerings that may otherwise, be inaccessible for many employees. Helping these employees experience the satisfaction of contributing in ways that both align with their capacities and enable business success is crucial as well. To continue and expand the positive impact of La Fageda, the executive team needed to navigate the complex and changing business landscape, and cultivate a unified vision for the future. Having a common language to tackle problems and guide daily interactions enhanced the capacity of the executive team to collaborate and innovate while staying grounded in their core values.
Arbinger training helped La Fageda’s executive team to reduce internal tensions and function more smoothly within the. Rather than feeling like individuals separately addressing different issues facing the company, they increased their awareness of one another’s responsibilities and the means by which they could offer support. This led to deeper interconnectedness and allowed entrenched disagreements to become cooperatively addressed. The culture at La Fageda quickly became an exemplary culture within the world of social entrepreneurship.
Issues that had been a source of conflict for years have been resolved without competitive maneuverings or disgruntled combatants. The team was also able to come to a place of increased clarity and agreement regarding the overall strategic direction of La Fageda, providing synergy and optimism for the future.
In addition to enhancing cohesion within the executive team, Arbinger training, and principles have been disseminated throughout the organization. Executive team members implemented Arbinger tools within their respective teams to increase individual accountability and improve communication efficiency. This process is ongoing, as La Fageda continues to consult with
Arbinger facilitators, while refining their onboarding, job training, and employee engagement practices- all to maintain the wonderful benefits of social entrepreneurship, like empowering those with disabilities in the workplace.
Cristóbal Colón believes that partnering with Arbinger has been crucial for institutionalizing an enduring culture that elevates the humanity of each employee and promotes business excellence. Armed with the perspectives, frameworks, and tools of an outward mindset in social enterprises, La Fageda intrepidly continues producing quality products and changing lives making them one of the best social entrepreneurship examples.
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